You don’t need a million dollar Steinway piano to put on a captivating musical performance. You don’t even need a real piano, as Sami Elu proves, by hacking together recycled instruments, materials you’d find at a hardware store, and a bunch of unused chopsticks.

We’ve been pouring carbon into our atmosphere for over 200 years, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global climate. Now a start-up venture called Air Ink has found a good use for some of that extra carbon: a line of pens whose ink is made of recycled air pollution.

Time and time again we’ve cautioned you against buying coffee pod machines like the Keurig, but what if one is gifted to you? Instead of just settling for bad coffee every morning, you can do what Evan Booth did and rebuild it into something else, like a functional robotic bionic hand.

Haven’t cleaned your desk in years? At this point you’ve probably accumulated enough crap to recycle it all into something useful, instead of just sweeping it all onto the floor. YouTube’s MrGear has an easy-to-follow tutorial show you how to turn an old CD case, some soda cans, and various unwanted electronic bits…

When you think of the daily abuse that airplane seats have to endure, it’s a minor miracle they aren’t torn to shreds after just a week of air travel. The fabrics used for the upholstery must be just short of indestructible, so it makes sense to eventually recycle those materials into bags and packs that can easily…

When the Fed constantly replaces old, tattered dollar bills with new, crispy cash, millions of notes get pulled out of circulation while new dollar bills get put in circulation. So what happens to all that old money? It gets shredded. But then what?

There’s about five pounds of salvageable copper inside your typical photocopier (mostly in the power supply and the motor’s copper windings). Copper, that can be mixed with zinc to create brass. Brass, that can be shaped out to make a trumpet. It’s the circle of life!

Companies like New Balance have been using recycled plastic from water bottles to make shoes for years now. But Adidas is taking that idea one step further. Teaming up with Parley for the Oceans, its new Adidas x Parley sneakers are also made from plastics recovered from the ocean.

Last month, the internet flew into a frenzy over news that Apple recovered $40 million worth of gold from old gadgets last year. That story turned out to be wildly oversold. But our eagerness to celebrate a tech company’s recycling victory speaks to a disturbing truth.

Over the last year, Apple processed 90 million pounds of electronics that were unwanted or broken. It turns out they were nearly worth their weight in gold—a substance which is used heavily in electronics for its conductivity and resistance to corrosion.

Apple recently unveiled the Apple Renew program, which pays you in Apple gift cards and good Earth vibes to recycle old iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices. Here’s what you can expect to get back if you send in your used stuff.

Big Rope has a stranglehold on the ‘tying things down’ industry, and if you’re tired of paying through the nose for a few feet of twine, you’ll want to consider backing the Kickstarter campaign for this simple tool that can turn empty plastic bottles into super strong plastic rope.

Here’s a great way to enrage the Apple fans in your life whom put all of the company’s creations on a pedestal. Imgur user hahabird converted the shell from a classic 1986 Macintosh Plus into a garbage can, complete with a spring-loaded screen flap.

Real Christmas trees are beautiful. They smell good. They look classy as hell. They are not made of plastic and imported from China like most of the fake trees you can buy. They are not fake, which means they are easily assumed to possess that most coveted trait of all, authenticity.

I’m totally getting hypnotized watching this machine spin around and around as it crushes aluminum can after aluminum can. The colors of the soda, the constant spin of the wheel, the methodical movement of the arm, it all makes for such a satisfying video to watch. I think people would absolutely recycle more if they…

Look, we all know it’s inevitable. Cars get old, develop issues, (or don’t make it beyond the test facility) and eventually the love is lost. Watching these expired models slowly get gutted, drained, torn apart, and crushed, however, is still depressing for some reason.

Whether you embrace it with open arms or toss it in the trash as soon as it arrives, the Ikea catalog is one of the most widely distributed publications on earth. But to help reduce the environmental impact of all that paper, the company is now recycling old copies into cushion stuffing.

It’s the last thing you want to find floating on your backyard pool, but a Mississippi-based company called Bloom has developed a way to turn algae, that green slimy goo that makes it unpleasant to swim in a lake, into eco-friendly foam for use in yoga mats, sandals, or luggage.